Still alive
Merry Christmas or whatever bullshit you celebrate.
That sounds like I mean that if you celebrate anything other than Christmas, it’s bullshit. Which sounds kind of racist.
But I’m including Christmas as a type of bullshit there. I celebrate Christmas with its attendant traditions of deceiving children and gluttony, but as a non-Christian I think the rationale for it is bullshit. To be clear, if you’ve been doing Hannukah or Diwali or whatever Muslim Christmas is called, I don’t believe in the rationale for those either. I call bullshit on Yahweh and Muhammed and whatever Hindu god it is that you main (not clear on the mechanics of polytheism but I assume choosing a god works like choosing a character to play in Apex Legends or Overwatch).
But the celebration isn’t bullshit, of course. It’s important for everyone to get through the darkness of winter with a bit of fun, binging on whatever fatty foods your particular culture favours, and telling your children all about the Diwali Goblin and his thousand hooves, or convincing them that Muhammed has come down the chimney on his flying horse by leaving some feathers in the tandoor.
I’m guessing there.
All of the good traditions were stolen from pagans anyway, so it isn’t offensive to make fun of them.
Gig dates
Unconfirmed BRINGER gig on Wednesday January 5th 2022 - Earl’s Court area
Get in touch if you are possibly willing to risk Covid to see me shake off the rust. Or whatever you do with rust. Sandpaper it off, probably.
Thursday January 6th 2022 8:30pm (doors 8pm) - Downstairs at the King’s Head, Crouch End
Tickets £5 from https://www.wegottickets.com/event/529937 (£6 on the door)
King’s Head, 2 Crouch End Hill, London N8 8AA
Thursday January 27th 2022 8pm (doors 7pm) - Monkey Business, Camden
Tickets £7.50 from https://www.wegottickets.com/event/534313
All About Eve pub, 31 Jamestown Rd, London NW1 7DB
Obviously, as usual, double check details with venues. The above dates are subject to cancellation if the hospitals start to collapse again… I don’t think that’s going to happen but who knows?
Recommendations
Not sure why Don’t Look Up on Netflix got such luke-warm reviews. It’s not hilariously funny but it is enjoyable. It’s not a simplistic climate change parable: the bit where the public cares about Ariana Grande’s manatee rescue charity more than a world-destroying comet is a great metaphor for misplaced priorities on both the left and the right. It’s not even necessarily a parable: in real life, the ability to spot incoming planet-killers might be compromised because indigenous protestors and assorted hippies have decided to oppose building a new telescope in Hawa’ii, saying it will anger the mountain spirits or something, and the local authorities are too pussy to just tear-gas and club them like they deserve.
I’d never actually seen Blazing Saddles until just recently. Wow! You couldn’t make it now, because it makes fun of slavery and depicts a black man becoming a sheriff instead of abolishing the police entirely. Very funny in places. The most dated part is the descent into fourth-wall breaking slapstick mayhem when they run out of ideas for how to resolve the story, which feels like a holdover from the Marx Brothers or something. Since everything is a fucking reboot or sequel now, someone please let Donald Glover make a sequel or a reboot of this.
Konfidential Komiks Korner
Does anyone have suggestions for gigs that I could get booked on between now and Jan 6th? Preferably non-bringers, given the uncertain Covid situation.
Rusty comics: I can get us an indoor practice space this Sunday (Jan 2nd 2022) if you fancy trying some new material or just running through a set with an audience again… I don’t know if getting rusty at standup is actually a thing but I haven’t done it for a few weeks, and I feel like it would be good to get back into it with something more ‘real’ than practicing in front of a mirror. Would start say 2pm, fairly central and easy to get to, not a pub function room so BYOB.
I spent 5 hours working on an essay for this edition about how cancel culture does too exist, even though a lot of people who I generally agree with politically say it doesn’t. The scope kind of got away with me and it’s not going to be ready today. Let me know if you feel like reading through the draft version and giving me your feedback. Especially if you do think cancel culture exists and want to point out all the weaknesses in what I’m saying.